This Week in Coins: Ethereum and Bitcoin Keep Bleeding as Telegram Drama Continues

There's depressing news for those hoping the price of crypto markets would improve this week. Depressing news for nearly all investors, it would seem. 

Bitcoin continued to drop, and hard, this week. Over the past seven days, the price of the asset has descended by more than 9% and—after dipping as low as $52,690 on Friday—rolled into the weekend trading hands for $53,229, according to CoinGecko. 

That’s significantly lower than its 2021 record of $69,044—let alone its March all-time high of $73,747. 

The price dip comes as economic data shows that the U.S. labor market might not be as strong as expected, and investors fast cash out of the newly-approved spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). 

Ethereum’s price was hit harder: the coin hit its lowest price of 2024 and ended the week priced at $2,178 after tumbling more than 11%.

Decrypt reported that Ethereum-related investments NFTs have shed a depressing amount of their value over the years and that online marketplace for the digital goods OpenSea could be in trouble as the Securities and Exchange Commission has it in its crosshairs. 

It wasn’t just crypto that took a beating, either: U.S. equities also plunged hard, with tech stocks like chip giant Nvidia posting its biggest daily market cap drop on Tuesday.

All eyes are now on the Federal Reserve and its next meeting later this month. Investors expect the central bank will finally slash interest rates but are anxious about how big the cut will be—leading to volatility in the markets with any new data that drops.

In other news, crypto-friendly messaging app Telegram’s founder and CEO Pavel Durov finally spoke out following his arrest by French authorities last month. He said that Telegram was not a criminal safe-haven and that the app had worked to take down illegal content in the past. 

The price of TON, the cryptocurrency closely associated with the app, is one of the worst-performing coins, having dipped by 14% in seven days. It’s now priced at $4.59.